Installation for washing hand trucks of operating machines, particularly hand trucks or rotogravure machines

Abstract

An installation for washing hand trucks of operating machines, particularly of rotogravure machines, is constructed and designed in order to receive and to treat in a wash chamber a whole hand truck along with all its parts, not dismounted. In the wash chamber of the installation there is a number of tubular bored bars which receive the wash solvent from a circulation pump and direct the same in the form of jets against the parts of the treated hand truck which require to be washed. The bars form a rotatable whole, are displaced in rotation and in translation in an alternate movement by pneumatic cylinders, and advantageously they surround a print cylinder mounted in the hand truck. A lower collecting basin receives the falling used solvent, and therefrom the solvent is sucked by the circulation pump during a first pre-wash step.

1 . A method for washing hand trucks of operating machines, comprising:
 opening a door of a washing chamber and introducing a hand truck of an operating machine to be washed into the washing chamber;   closing the door of the washing chamber;   activating a circulation pump to recirculate used washing solvent from a collection basin to pre-wash the hand truck;   circulating clean washing solvent by the circulation pump to effect a final wash of the hand truck; and   stopping circulation of the washing solvent, opening the door, and extracting the hand truck from the washing chamber.   
   
   
       2 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 1 , further comprising receiving the washing solvent from the circulation pump communicating into the washing chamber via a plurality of tubular bored bars, and directing the washing solvent from the bars in the form of jets onto parts of hand truck which are to be washed. 
   
   
       3 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 2 , wherein the bored bars form a rotatable and translatable whole, displacing the rotatable and translatable whole of the bored bars in rotation and in translation in an alternate movement, such that bored bars each direct a flow of the washing solvent toward the parts of the hand truck to be washed, along one or more directions, according to the position of each bored bar with respect to the hand truck. 
   
   
       4 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 1 , further comprising collecting used solvent falling into the collection basin. 
   
   
       5 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 1 , further comprising storing the clean washing solvent in a tank, and sucking the clean washing solvent from the tank by said circulation pump in the final wash step. 
   
   
       6 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 1 , further comprising recuperating, or accumulating in view of future recuperating, the used washing solvent, and emptying from the collection basin dirty washing solvent and formed sludge and directing the dirty washing solvent for recuperation or accumulation. 
   
   
       7 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 1 , further comprising exhausting vapors of the washing solvent during all steps of the method, and condensing the washing solvent vapors for recirculation, recuperation, or accumulation in view of future recuperation of the washing solvent. 
   
   
       8 . A method for washing, as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the operating machine is a rotogravure machine which includes a print cylinder mounted on the hand truck.